Thinking out loud on Tevin Williams

Just had an interesting conversation about Euless Trinity running back Tevin Williams, who has apparently gone incommunicado after his weekend visit to Northwestern, with a good friend who works in the recruiting field for a state-based service.

I can’t stress this enough: Neither of us have spoken directly to Williams — I’m like 0 for 20 over the past few days — or anyone in his family (father Travis says he’s done talking). What follows is 100% speculation.

But, after looking at all the details, we came to the conclusion that he’s probably been given the opportunity to join Northwestern as a gray shirt, and is currently weighing that option or UTSA’s offer to join straight away, gratis.

What’s a gray shirt, you ask?

Gray shirt recruits are scholarship athletes with one critical difference. Though Williams would sign his Official Letter of Intent next week, he’d take only 3-9 hours in his first semester, thereby delaying his entry as a full-time student and pushing back the start of his elegiblity clock (five years to play four seasons) until next year. That’s how schools can sign beyond their scholarship limitation, as Northwestern would have to do after apparently reaching this year’s threshold with 15 commitments.

(If I recall correctly, that’s how Texas A&M was able to sign former Express-News Defensive Player of the Year Spencer Nealy out of Reagan.)

We know that Williams hasn’t been offered a scholarship, or he’d have accepted on the spot, it would have been all over the Internet and he and his dad would be returning phone calls. We also know that Northwestern had to have more interest in Williams than simply using him as an insurance policy in case one of their other targets didn’t commit. You wouldn’t need to fly him up to Chicago for an official visit, as the Wildcats did this weekend, for that.

In fact, when I asked his father Travis about the insurance scenario, during the same conversation he told me Tevin was going to commit to UTSA if he didn’t get a full offer on the spot, he insisted that wasn’t the case. Which seems to leaves only one apparent possibility: the gray shirt. At least, that’s how it looks to me and my friend, who’s got a pretty good idea how colleges operate.

Why wouldn’t Williams pounce on that opportunity immediately, if in fact that’s what he’s been offered? As far as I understand, there’s one big catch — athletes have to pay for that initial half-semester out of their own pocket. As you can probably imagine, that wouldn’t be cheap at a school like Northwestern. So, and again, nothing but pure speculation here, he’s probably seriously mulling that expense, as well as the prestige of eventually playing at a solid Big 10 school, over the completely free ride he’s been offerred at UTSA.

You can understand why. Here’s a player who, before tearing up his knee, was being touted as a possible national recruit. Now he’s got minimal options, including a school that has yet to play a down of football. If UTSA can land him, and he stays healthy, you’re probably looking at a four-year starter. But apparently he’s holding out for something else.

Again, I could be completely off base with all of this, but it certainly seems plausible, doesn’t it?